Beyond Catastrophes

Table of Contents

1. Frontmatter

2. Introduction a New Journey to Italy

   Seeing Through Catastrophe Angela Maiello

   Abstract

   This passage is from the renowned volume Viaggio in Italia, which was originally published to accompany the eponymous exhibition conceived in the mid-1980s by Pina Belli d’Elia, Luigi Ghirri, Gianni Leone, and Enzo Velati. The collective exhibition is considered one of the foundational moments in contemporary Italian photography, due to the impetus it gave to a renewal of the very idea of the Italian landscape. As Arturo C. Quintavalle writes, questioning the Italian landscape means questioning the very idea of photography; it means interrogating the forms of the image and of representation.

3. The Spectacle of Catastrophe

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Catastrophes and the Problem of ‘Nature’

      Simona Stano

      Abstract

      The word ‘catastrophe’ comes from the ancient Greek καταστρέϕω, which is formed from κατα (kata), meaning ‘down’ or ‘against’, and στρέφω (stréphō), ‘to turn’. In its etymological sense, it conveys the general idea of ‘overturning’. Accordingly, in ‘catastrophe theory’,¹ the term is used to refer to the idea of a ‘critical point’, the final stage of a phase of equilibrium, which paves the way for change and transformation. However, when the word entered the English lexicon in the sixteenth century, it acquired a dysphoric connotation, being initially used to describe tragic events in dramatic works and later extending to refer to devastating events and disasters more broadly. Contemporary dictionaries continue to emphasize such a negative connotation.

   3. Disaster Without Trauma

      The Cultural Approach to the Study of Catastrophes Luca Mori

      Abstract

      The Italian region of Emilia-Romagna has been repeatedly struck by floods and extreme weather events over the past fifteen years. This trend is documented by Legambiente, Italy’s most prominent environmentalist association. In its reports, the association has listed all the major catastrophic events that have occurred in the region since 2010.¹ Reviewing the list is striking: as the years have progressed, both the frequency and severity of these events have increased, culminating in the four devastating floods that took place between the spring of 2023 and the autumn of 2024. In addition to causing over ten billion euros in damage, these floods resulted in the loss of eighteen lives.

   4. Where Forms Fail

      From Catastrophe to Beyond Alessandro Calefati

      Abstract

      Reflecting on catastrophe does not mean considering an isolated event, but rather confronting a limit within thought itself. Catastrophe is not simply a deviation from the ordinary course of things; it is the exposure of the instability of what is usually seen as ‘ordinary’. In this sense, catastrophe is not merely one event among others, but rather a revelation that being itself is precarious, contingent, and never fully self-grounded. Catastrophe is an interruption that exposes the constructedness of the world, sense, and form. Therefore, it pertains only to those forms of life that are caught within structures such as form and stability — in other words, all forms of life, each in its own way. Catastrophe questions the tacit assumptions underlying human existence, exposing their fragility.

   5. Thinking with the Land

      Ecological Aesthetics from a Meridian Perspective Chiara Falcone

      Abstract

      In the context of the contemporary ecological crisis, images of environmental disasters flood the media, fostering apocalyptic imagery. The scenarios of the Anthropocene seem to be characterized by a dual and opposing movement: in one direction, an unstoppable urbanization phagocytizing landscapes or trying to transform them into commodities; in the opposite direction, untameable elemental forces destroying any human-made structure. Television programmes, newspapers, and social media are saturated with images depicting this dual movement: cities and villages shape forms, while earthquakes, floods, eruptions, and landslides dismantle them.

   6. The ‘World Fallen’

      From Catastrophe to an Ontology of Film Simona Busni

      Abstract

      In this substantial passage from The World Viewed (1971), Stanley Cavell reflects on the relationship between the world and the screen, describing the latter as a portentous phenomenological frame without boundaries, capable of expanding or contracting to accommodate the span of the world that ‘happens’ within it.² Nothing really ends on the screen: compared to painting and photography, the medium of film is the gestational and emphatic site of an eternal new beginning of reality. The spatial metaphor underlying Cavell’s discourse aligns with the intrinsically philosophical dimension of his reflection on cinema, but it can also prompt some related questions.

   7. Nonindifferent to What?

      On Artavazd Peleshyan’s ‘Nature’ Francesco Zucconi

      Abstract

      The intersection of media and the environment has become a central focus of inquiry that is reshaping the way these concepts are understood. Firstly, it has become clear that media are not simply tools for communication, as they actively shape experiences and the environments we inhabit. Secondly, it has been acknowledged that what is commonly called the ‘natural environment’ can itself be seen as a medium — or rather, as a set of dynamic media. On the one hand, the idea of media environment emphasizes how any technology contributes to constructing a surrounding space and influences experiences. On the other hand, the notion of elemental media refers to the idea that the environment plays a role in processes of mediation.¹

   8. Is Catastrophe Unrepresentable?

      Cinema and the Question of Rubble Daniele Dottorini

      Abstract

      The issue at stake when addressing the relationship between image and catastrophe is that of visibility. How can an event as real as a catastrophe be made visible? More importantly, what kinds of images can a natural catastrophe produce? These questions are the starting point for exploring the complex relationship between cinema — and cinéma du réel in particular — and catastrophic events. A few examples from the history of cinema will be examined, each of them providing reference points to help navigate this process of inquiry and answer these initial questions.

4. Italian Landscapes

   1. Frontmatter

   2. The Catastrophe Will Not Be Televised

      Media Theory Facing Vajont Giacomo Tagliani

      Abstract

      Late in the evening of 9 October 1963, a slope of Mount Toc collapsed into the artificial reservoir created by the Vajont dam, the highest double-arch dam in the world. The fall of this huge mass of debris, soil, and rocks displaced a quantity of water that surged in multiple directions. It primarily affected the municipality of Erto e Casso, located on the northern bank of the reservoir, causing hundreds of deaths. However, the wave also overtopped the crest of the dam and poured down the narrow, deep gorge leading into the Piave valley, reaching the municipality of Longarone. More than the force of the water itself, it was the shock wave generated by the displacement of air that caused the greatest destruction: its intensity is estimated to have been twice that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The official death toll was 1910, although some estimates exceed 2000.¹

   3. Territories After Disaster

      Speculative Futures in the Caudina Valley Serena Olcuire

      Abstract

      San Martino Valle Caudina is a small municipality of approximately 4900 inhabitants located at the foot of the Partenio mountain range, in the inland areas of the Campania region, between Sannio and Irpinia. A relatively ordinary place in terms of territorial and socio-economic configuration, it is largely absent from collective imagination and, in turn, struggling to envision its own future. In a historical moment marked by a considerable difficulty in projecting individual desires and collective aspirations beyond the present — a condition Valentina Pellegrino¹ describes as a gradual ‘evaporation’ of the future as a shared and widespread construct — this phenomenon appears even more acute in areas experiencing territorial distress, whether urban or rural. The apparent inevitability of certain processes generates a perception of inertia, one that stifles the capacity to imagine alternative futures.

   4. Post-Anthropocene Generative Visual Culture

      Stones and Myths from Two Volcanic Films on Mount Etna Giovanna Santaera

      Abstract

      With the advent of artificial intelligence, the concept of generative images and media has become widespread. Despite being rooted in two completely different visual paradigms, non-algorithmic film and audiovisual representations of natural catastrophes can offer an alternative experience of ‘generative narratives’. Shaped by the interaction of natural, technological, and human elements, these images acquire a critical dimension.

   5. Beyond the Volcanic Effect

      The Remediation of the Etna Landscape in Pasolini’s Poetics Corinne Pontillo

      Abstract

      In one of the essays in Scritti corsari, Pier Paolo Pasolini encapsulates the end of the old agricultural and paleo-industrial world in the well-known expression ‘disappearance of fireflies’, which he explains as follows:

   6. Echoes of Ruins

      The L’Aquila Earthquake in Film Mirko Lino

      Abstract

      The cinematic representation of the 2009 earthquake that devastated the city of L’Aquila and numerous towns in the ‘crater zone’¹ highlights a heterogeneous strand of films that are difficult to define in quantitative or formal terms. This body of work spans various expressive modes — from auteur cinema to amateur footage, from mainstream distribution to self-produced works shared on digital platforms — and moves along an unstable axis where multiple documentary impulses coexist. What these filmic materials have in common is their origin in a context of emergency, whose protracted aftermath influenced narrative strategies, thematic choices, stylistic approaches, and several other aspects. As Andrea Sangiovanni has noted in a preliminary study,² within this fragmented landscape of productions and stories, no codified characteristics can be discerned. Rather, tendencies and orientations can be identified that constitute an initial framework for observing and analysing how cinema portrays the consequences of a natural catastrophe on a specific area.

   7. The End of Places

      Emiliano Dante’s L’Aquila Earthquake Trilogy Samuel Antichi

      Abstract

      On the night between Sunday, 5 April, and Monday, 6 April 2009, at 3:32 a.m. Italian time, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of Mw 6.3 struck a large area of L’Aquila province and was felt throughout central Italy. The main shock occurred after several months of moderate seismic activity, most of which was perceived by the population. The earthquake caused severe damage, with 309 fatalities, 1600 injured people, and the displacement of over 70,000 residents, as well as the destruction of a large part of the medieval city centre — the social, political, and cultural heart of L’Aquila. In terms of the number of victims, it ranks as the fifth most destructive earthquake in contemporary Italian history, following those in Messina in 1908, Avezzano in 1915, Friuli in 1976, and Irpinia in 1980.

   8. Wasted Youth

      Life after Catastrophe in Southern Italian Dystopian Series Laura Ysabella Hernández García

      Abstract

      Living in the contemporary world means inhabiting a space suspended between the forces of systemic ruin and speculative creation. While exacerbating environmental degradation and social disintegration, emerging technologies also facilitate the creation of virtual and imaginary worlds, through which new ontologies of life can be envisioned.

   9. The City and the Catastrophe

      Identity as the Transformation of the ‘Città Vecchia’ of Cosenza Felice Cimatti

      Abstract

      What is rashly called a ‘city’ does not exist. It does not exist because things do not exist as entities delimited in space. Contrary to what human unconscious ontology ‘believes’, a cat on a carpet, or a carpet under a cat, does not exist in itself: the ‘substances’ cat and carpet do not exist. More simply, things do not exist. When thinking about the ‘city’ — bearing in mind that ‘city’ is first and foremost a name — emphasis should be placed on the often-forgotten fact that the very question of the city would not exist if nobody thought about the city starting from the name ‘city’ — whatever this ‘thing’ that is called ‘city’ may be (one could say that Homo sapiens is such an oversight). Therefore, there is a deep connection, a metaphysical connection — and metaphysics invades both thought and action because individuals are unaware of its invasiveness — between the name ‘city’ and that complicated thing full of people, animals, cars, trees, buildings, and other elements that one generally refers to by that name. Once again, it is not true that it is facts, rather than words, that count, as it is words that make one believe that the corresponding facts exist.

5. Backmatter